Richard Posner’s recent book, ‘The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy’, is mainly about the global financial crisis, how it came about in the US, the lessons that the author thinks we should have learned from it and what governments should do to prevent similar crises in future. According to this distinguished author the crisis came about because of [...]

Having just finished reading Gregg Easterbrook’s new book, ‘Sonic Boom’, I think he would say that we should welcome globalization. He sees fantastic potential for social progress, but improved living standards are likely to be ‘wrapped with ribbons of stress, anxiety and dissatisfaction (p.34). His bottom line seems to be that globalization is inevitable and [...]

If you want to understand Democrat fantasies in the absence of financial constraint or common sense, read Reed Hundt’s book, “In China’s Shadow.” Reed Hundt is a permanent member of the American politcal class, a Yalie, a partner in a high-powered law firm, head of Bill Clinton’s FCC, and a member of Barack Obama’s transition [...]

Tom Slee has written a book entitled No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart. The introduction of the book ends with “why we need to rely on collective action rather than individual choice to take us to where we want to be”.
Poor Tom! He fantasizes that once the tools of coercive collective action are created, [...]

“Societies need subjective indicators of well-being to aid policy makers and ordinary citizens in making decisions.” This is the opening line of the recently published book, “Well-being for Public Policy” by Ed Diener, Richard Lucas, Ulrich Schimmack and John Helliwell. The first three authors are psychologists (Diener has played a leading role in the field [...]

One of my reasons for reading Tony Abbott’s recent book, “Battlelines”, was to remind myself why I am not a conservative. The more serious reason was to find our how a politician who proudly wears the conservative label would attempt to justify proposing an amendment to the Australian constitution that would remove current restrictions on [...]

If you want to understand Democrat fantasies in the absence of financial constraint or common sense, read Reed Hundt’s book, “In China’s Shadow.” Reed Hundt is a permanent member of the American political class, a Yalie, a partner in a high-powered law firm, head of Bill Clinton’s FCC, and a member of Barack Obama’s [...]

On 25 June 2009 I was invited to the Cafe Libertalia to speak at a book club where I was given the latitude to choose the book for discussion.  I picked What Has Government Done To Our Money And The Case For A 100% Gold Dollar by Murray Rothbard. This book is an easy to [...]

I remember an offhand remark someone made about ‘If you think the gold bugs are crazy just wait until you meet a silver bug.’  Well, a few months ago at an investment conference I met David Morgan of Silver-Investor.com.  I found him to be another right thinking person.
We talked for a while, became friends and occasionally collaborate. [...]

“We don’t need a bigger army, but rather a smaller foreign policy.”